1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method, to a computer program, to a recording medium and to a device for determining a characteristic data set for a data signal.
2. Description of Related Art
One of the consequences of the rapid development of the world wide web is the on-line obtainability and sales of music recordings that are duplicated as pirate copies, which opens the door to copyright infringement on a large scale. The detection of such infringements until now has not been effected systematically and was more or less left to chance. A reason for this is the fact that the identification of music recordings by bugging is time consuming and therefore the companies and persons hit by copyright infringements had to make considerable means available. On the other hand, music identification based on computer software has until now been limited to indicators such as the length of the recording or characteristic combinations on a recording. Such an identification is suitable for the comparison of original CD recordings, but however fails if a recording has been clipped, compressed or changed in another manner. For example, it thus particularly does not function with the identification of digital downloads, analog recordings, etc.
Analogous problems are also encountered with further electronic data for which one may raise the question of a copyright infringement. Thus, for example, film recordings are becoming increasingly digitally available, for example recorded on a DVD or may be downloaded online in a suitable format.
These questions arising in the field of copyright are part of a large problem. The handling of large data quantities is generally a constantly growing challenge. Ever increasing quantities of data are electronically recorded and made available. Compression algorithms indeed help reduce these data quantities for transmission and storage. However, the much greater basic underlying problem of handling the data, that of finding one's way in the quantities of information, is not solved by compression algorithms. One group of examples of such large data quantities amongst others are to be found in technology, for example with the electronic monitoring of the condition of a system, for example of a motor, an installation, a vehicle, etc. Here it would be desirable if in a short time one could obtain important information on the condition of the monitored system from a large quantity of arising information. This analogously applies, for example, to science and its direct application. Whole branches of research are essentially occupied with evaluating recorded data during a short time, particularly in astronomy, in particle physics, when determining the structure of biological matter. The same is also true of medicine (computer tomography, nuclear spin tomography, electronically recorded X-ray pictures, ultrasound data recording etc.).